Sunday, September 30, 2012

Andrzej Wajda - Katyn (2007)

Andrzrej Wajda

Is there any of you who haven't heard of Wajda? who haven't seen any of his films? An intellectual with a good understanding and assimilation of his country couldn't have described it this beautifully. Wajda's films handle the history and the people of Poland; they touch the political and social evolution of this country after the 2nd World War. That is to say, the subjects of Wajda's filmsare sensitive. In Katyn (2007), Wajda reveals his country's tragic historical facts that he was personally involved, but he postponed to portray it for many years due to political reasons.

Poland got out from the sovereignty of the Communistregime in1989. While Katyn, the brutal massacre, took its place in history, it was not, of course, possible to make a movieon this subject in Poland until 1989. Wajda'sfatherwas murdered inthe massacre too. Growing upduring the war, having losthis father, seeing his mother's painand the pain ofthe people of his country, Wajda obviously didn't have an easy childhood.

I cannot deny that it was troubling to watch Katyn. The movie shakes you from the beginning till the end. The testimony oftheendlesssufferingof the film doesn't know its ending. Piece by piece, it manifests the intersecting, common stories of people, albeit different from each other, and the suffering that is related to the entire nation. The film starts with the images of Poland in 1939, where the Polish peopleare running away from the occupation of enemysoldiers. While everybody is heading away from the battle field, one womanis moving towards it: she is going to the prisoner camp of the enemy where her husband is...

Her husbandis put aboard a train, the train sets offto an unknown destination. The only thingthat consoles her is the fact that her husband is alive. She prays for his return, while believing that being a prisoner is better than being dead.

However, the truth comes to light much later after the end of the war. While the Russian and German governments accuse each other, Polish people know the truth and try to face it. However, no one can talk about it, since Poland is still under the occupation of Russia that is responsible for this atrocity. Thus, the subject is shelved as a taboo.Gerçek su yüzüne savaş bittikten çok daha sonra çıkacaktır. Rusya ve Almanya hükümetleri birbirlerini suçlarken Polonya halkı gerçeği bilmekte ve yüzleşmeye çalışmaktadır. Fakat kimse bu konuyu konuşamaz, çünkü Polonya halen bu acımasızlığın sorumlusu olan düşmanın işgali altındadır, ve konu bir tabu olarak rafa kaldırılır.

The movieis full of details. For example, at one part, while Russian troops were tearing the Polish flag which consists of a red and white strip, one of the Russian soldiers rolled the white part of the flag as socks to his feet, while another soldier hang back the red part as a Soviet flag.

The actors' performance is excellent. I don't think they left much work to the director. Their performances were genuine as if they were feeling the story inside as if they lived those moments themselves. They seem perfectly aware that they were representing the sad event in their history.

One of the good things of watching a movie from a DVD is that sometimes there are additional contents showing how the movies were filmed. This time, they have included a one-hour interview with Wajda in the DVD. There, Wajda tells us why it took a such a long time for him to start shooting Katyn, and that it felt like a duty for him. "Shall I have told the movie from the perspective of my mother, or from the perspective of my father. Which actors should have taken part in it, which scenarists should I have worked with...all of these were question marks to me, and I wantedeverythingto beexactly as I wanted, because it was my movie." he says. After thinkingfor a long timeWajdadecides that his film should be about "the massacreand the lie".